Beaches are only part of the Cuban experience. Then, there is Havana
Phinder Dulai. National Post. October 20, 2001.
National Post
HAVANA - By night, jazz bars located off the Malecon, Havana's 10-kilometre
seafront boulevard, play host to dizzying jam sessions carrying wild trumpet
solos over the night air. Against the humid, diesel-fumed night, the city mambas
the night away to Cuba's percussion-heavy brand of contemporary jazz, while the
Straits of Florida crash up against the Malecon.
I find myself thinking of Ry Cooder's collective projects of the Buena Vista
Social Club, a great introduction to Cuba's Son music tradition. Regardless of
instrument, nearly every musician is a percussionist at heart in Cuba, says
Joachim Cooder in the video-documentary of the Buena Vista Social Club.
La Zorra y El Cuervo is one of Havana's most popular jazz clubs. It is
located across from the International Press Building on Calle 23, known as La
Rampa because of its history in Havana's red light district during the Batista
era.
Cuervo hosts two local bands this night and watching them helps me realize
the percussionist's brilliance is not the big-bang boom of flailing hands and
drumsticks, but the steady, patient syncopation of rhythm cycles played and
interwoven from instruments such as timbales -- stand-up drums made famous in
the film The Mambo Kings -- along with bongos and the congas.
The second act is a traditional nine-piece Cuban band with three front
singers. At the end of the night, as I drive in my open-air bubble taxi and hear
the waves of the strait off to the left while the salt air fills my lungs, I
have the band percussionist's solo in my mind. I recall him losing himself while
controlling his play. He went from one riff to another, until finally he let go.
As a man lost in the epic, rolling cresting intensity of the moment, he kicked
off his shoes, took them in his hand and finished off his solo with a flourish,
playing his congas with the heels of his shoes.
It seems someone forgot to tell him the music had stopped, but then I
realize I am in a city that does not know the meaning of 'no music' or 'stop the
music.'
Now it is daytime in Havana. The city has over 40 museums and at least 14
major art galleries. More than half of those are located in the central areas of
Vieja, Vedado, Centro Havana. The Malecon at Paseo De Marti (known as Prado)
provides an accessible route for walking throughout the three areas. Local maps
are available at most tourist bureaus located at the hotels along Prado.
Serious cultural tourists can hop from bicycle taxis to the open-air,
orange-bubble-shaped taxis that run up and down the side streets. There are also
air-conditioned taxis, best saved for nighttime. Unlike other quasi-socialist
regimes, the revolution here has taught the cab drivers to keep their meters on.
Jose Marti, Cuba's 19th-century writer, journalist and independence freedom
fighter has more buildings, streets, monumental edifices and government service
buildings named after him than Cuba's archetypical revolutionary and pop culture
icon, Che Guevera.
Marti coined the phrase "victory or the tomb," his commitment to
an independent Cuba. In the '50s, a similarly inspired young Fidel Castro came
up with patria o muerte -- "patriotism or death," and later, "socialism
or death."
Those two phrases continue to dominate major billboards here along with many
other one-liners praising the revolution. Sometimes, reading the rhetoric is
life-affirming; other times, annoying, given they tend to be scrawled over
buildings in the act of crumbling. As Cuba moves forward into post-revolutionary
times, where capitalism plays a role in its tourism industry, it could use more
reality and less rhetoric.
Prado stretches from the harbour mouth of Castillo de San Salvador de le
Punta to Parque Central. Along here is the splendid Capitolio building based on
George Washington's Congress building. The Presidential Palace at Calle Refugio
#1, just off Prado, is a stunning turn-of-the century monolith, an opulent
building embellished with rococo zeal. The palace served as home to many of
Cuba's presidents, who hosted not only foreign dignitaries, but entertained
mafia types such as Myer Lansky and Al Capone in order to keep Havana a
gamblers' delight and playground during the 1940s and '50s. Today, it is the
home of the Museum of the Revolution, which gives visitors a blow-by-blow
account of Castro's revolution that brought him to power in 1959. One section
serves as a homage to Che Guevera and the martyrs of the revolution.
From buildings around Old Havana, gargoyles stare out at you, while the two
lions placed on each end of the Prado walkway are a reminder of the power of
this place at the turn of the 19th century -- a stunning new-world city,
brimming with Spanish colonial wealth and potential.
QUEST FOR THE BEST MOJITO:
The perfect mojito is like the city of Havana -- a subtle, seductive
experience that leaves you wanting more.
The makings Mix a half table-spoon of sugar and the juice of half a lime in
a highball glass. Add a few sprigs of mint, crush the mint into the glass. Add a
couple of ice cubes and 1.5 ounces of Havana Club Light Dry Rum. Fill with soda
water, stir and drink. If you like your rum, replace the white rum with either
three-year-old Havana Club amber or seven-year-old Havana Club amber.
The real thing On a mojito crawl through Havana, here were the top three
found:
Third place goes to Hotel Nacional. There is nothing better than sipping
this mojito as you overlook the ocean crashing against the Malecon.
Second place goes to Hotel Sevilla's El Patio and the Riviera Hotel lounge.
The Sevilla mojito was delicious as a mid-afternoon drink, not too much rum and
just enough lime and soda to make it refreshing.
First place is the La Bodeguita del Medio -- Hemingway made the drink famous
here. The mojito offered great taste and serenity on a hot afternoon and plenty
of a sugar cane kick in the Cuban white rum. It was the perfect balance.
IF YOU GO:
December in Havana is festival season. Every two years the city hosts the
Havana International Jazz Festival. The 20th anniversary of the festival will be
held Dec. 13 to 17, 2002.
Cuba Tourism Board in Toronto can be reached at (416) 362-0700 or check the
Web site at www.genera tion.net/~mintur/
Copyright © 2001 National Post Online | 
